Ave, all. Yes, it's the week after. Also my last weekend in BMT. Somehow, the feeling isn't as satisfying as I would have expected. Perhaps, over these 3 months, I've sort of grown comfortable (not in the sense of comfort, if you know what I mean) with the lifestyle i've been living, if not the physical training and agony. Now, all of a sudden, with all the effort I put into adjusting, it feels a waste that it would be all thrown away soon. All my bunk mates, grown into friends over time, will no longer be with me, going through the same trials again. Instead, I'll have to adapt to a new environment, comprising of new platoon mates, new training, new schedules, new camps, new rules, and the Light help me, new commanders.

Ah yes, the 24km route march. It was different from the others in the sense that this one was done on a school level, meaning there were a total of 9 companies marching together. Made for a really long line. Many times, by the time we would reach the rest point as the last company, the front company would already be moving out. Anyway, in short, I really wouldn't have made it. After the 16km rest point, as we started on the 16-20km route in almost complete darkness, I simply could not match the pace the line was moving at. It goes much further than just enduring pain or mentally pushing myself. My legs simply started to give way, and it's not fun when your body starts defying your orders. I had people encouraging me, pushing me, pulling me, and it took nothing short of a miracle to get me to the 20km rest point. Somehow, the last 4km was easier. Maybe it was the slightly longer rest break we had, maybe it was the fact that there was only 4km left, but the last stretch wasn't so bad. By that I mean that I didn't faint. The rest of the night though, I had this terrible feeling of wanting to vomit (I find this happens when I push myself beyond my body's limits. Trust me, it's one of the most unpleasant things I've felt, beating feeling travel sick or having a hangover.), but I was unable to, due to the fact I could neither eat nor drink, it was just too overwhelming. Anyway, i'm glad I survived that route march. Coming back after my POP for a re-march would have been terrible. (w00t, I hear in command school you have to do a 32km route march, with a live firing practice at the end =.=")

Gah, enough worrying. I've done enough of it to realise that it isn't really so useless at all (it's a form of mental preparation in a way for me, but only in small amounts), but it's far from positive or helpful either. The past week has been quite possibly the busiest week for all of us, even our sergeants. Ever since the 24km route march, we were pretty much living on 5 hours of sleep a night, to wake up to a full day of drills, rehearsals and parades as we neared the end of BMT. The army is like the number one place for protocol and tradition. And it's not the cool protocols you read about or imagine. It's painful. It's easy to imagine the head of the army as some sort of control freak.

The passing out parade is really quite a stupid thing, and the amount of rehearsing we have to do for it is a joke, compared to what our parents and stuff will see on the day. Tell them we spent a whole week (literally, a week (not equal to a week doing something outside of the context of a military camp)) rehearsing, they'll probably die rofling. Not much of a choice anyway (when is there ever...).

Oh yes, Recruits Evening was this week too, the day after our POP. Our company came in third place, out of 9 other companies, which is not bad considering the amount of time and effort we put in (not much at all). The winning company did such a hilarious representation of the movie 300 in the context of military life, everyone knew they had won by the end. The thing is, I don't think our company's OC is very happy, keeping in mind our company has been the Recruits Evening champions for 2 batches running, and our company is only that many batches old -.-". We are the third batch, and successfully broke their streak. Yay.

Our company seems to have been quite a disappointment really. Our Drill Squad didn't win either, our Recruits Evening performance didn't win, our live range firing saw our Company Best Shot go to someone who scored 29/32, compared to last batch where they had a 32/32 -.-". The last event, Games Day, on this Tuesday, is really our last chance for redemption. Hope we win this one. The first batch of our company managed to win their first Games Day, too T.T.

This book out, I figured I'd try something I hadn't dreamed of attempting before... Playing Dota with the guys back in Melbourne! The most surprising thing was, despite slight lag, it was actually playable. I was, quite frankly, overjoyed. I then went on to feed that game. Progressive games didn't get any better. Something to do with the constant international lag, I'm betting. Anyway, David says BA (Bored Aussies, the server I've been playing on for my last 2 (and possibly greatest) years of Dota) is shutting down at the end of this month. What happens to our guild then, and where we move, is still hanging in the balance. I'll leave that to our dedicated guild Captain =).

I hope to use the 2 weeks I get off after my POP to catch up with everything I haven't had the chance to do this last 3 months, anime being one of them -.-". The sad thing is, these 2 weeks use up what little leave I have for myself this year, leaving me with pretty much no chance to take any off days the rest of this year. Sigh. Again, nothing for it.

My mum just arrived this morning! You have no idea how much I missed her. Heck, I had no idea how much I missed those close to me, my friends and my family. Too bad we don't have much time to talk, I have to leave soon to book in (as usual) for the last time into BMT! My POP is on Wednesday morning, for which my mum will be there. Really thankful that she could be here for it (don't really know why). Recently I keep dreaming of those people close to me, mainly close friends (you all know who you are ^^) and immediate family. As in, being plagued by dreams that have been all to real lately. I can actually recount the entire dream, even details like what they wore, what happened. It's scary, and has frankly only ever happened to me a few times in my life. Sigh, miss you guys all too much.

Time to go, the next post will be sooner than usual! Hopefully Wednesday and Thursday, when my temporal illusion of freedom would have enveloped my weakened mind, all too ready to accept the respite, no matter how brief.

I've been crying too much lately.

Cya.